


In Fire

by Kaza999



Series: Echo Chamber [6]
Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Fandom
Genre: F/M, darquesse doesn't like people touching her things, well this is certainly cheery isn't it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-14
Updated: 2013-06-14
Packaged: 2017-12-15 00:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaza999/pseuds/Kaza999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For Friday of Valduggery Week--the theme was 'Apocalypse.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Fire

The world was burning. 

Darquesse fell to her knees beside Lord Vile’s prone form, no longer heedful of the terrible destruction that raged all around her. The world had suffered for what it had done to her. To them. That was enough for her. 

She put a hand on Vile's shoulder. He wasn't dead, she could still see the shell of magic around him that indicated he was alive. He just wouldn't wake up. They'd managed to do to him what they'd done to keep Argeddion under control for so long, only stronger somehow, and Vile hadn't figured a way out of it yet.

A shadow passed over her, and she looked up.

Upon seeing who it was, she shook her head, disappointed. “I don't think you want to do that, Ghastly,” she said, glancing at the fire in his hand. “Not such a great idea.”

Ghastly took a deep breath through his nose and tried to steady himself. “Valkyrie...” he began, as calmly as he was able. 

“No. Not Valkyrie.” 

His mouth tightened. “No. I guess not.” his eyes flicked to Lord Vile, then back to her face. “Why are you here? With him?”

She shrugged. “You know why.”

“I do.”

“Why'd you ask, then?”

He closed his eyes and the fire in his hand went out. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. “I never wanted to think that it was true.”

“Neither did Valkyrie. Neither did Skulduggery, actually.” she smiled. “I can see into people's thoughts now, did you know that? When he was being Skulduggery his head was full of so much fear, so much...what's the word? Self-loathing? He didn't want to think it was true either.” she licked her lips, tasted blood on them. “Not even when the armor came back to find him.”

Ghastly looked so tired, then. Darquesse noticed that his shirt was torn, and he was bleeding profusely from a shallow gash in his chest. “Why are you doing this?” he asked. 

She shrugged. “You started it.”

His expression went hard. “ _We_ did? Not Vile, when he joined Mevolent? When he killed so many of us? Not _you_?” he clenched his fists. “I told you to stay _away_ from magic. You could have stopped all this before it even started.”

She laughed. “That's a nice thought. Does it help you sleep at night?” she pulled herself to her feet. She was tired, her knuckles and her knees ached, her shoulders were sore and she was just _dying_ for something to eat. Very slowly, she walked towards Ghastly. One step. Then another. She didn't want to scare him off just yet, and she was in no hurry. 

“If it weren't for you, I would never have done all this.” she told him, sweeping her arms out and indicating the burning ruins all around them. “I _liked_ the world, Ghastly. It was funny, and pretty, and just really _interesting_.”

He stepped away from her, and she could feel fear pounding in his head, a primal, animal terror. “Not enough to stop this. Not enough to just stay Valkyrie.”

Darquesse's mouth twisted abruptly into a snarl, and Ghastly flinched. “You _hurt_ him. The minute you saw the armor you attacked, and you didn't think about it at all.” 

She advanced on him and grabbed his chin, holding his face in one hand. “No one's allowed to hurt him but me. No one is allowed to kill him but _me_. He's _mine_ and you were too stupid to realize it.”

She released him, leaving streaks of blood on his cheeks. “You deserved what you got. You all did.”

“That's what this is all about? Just him?” Ghastly gasped, appalled. “That's it?”

“Valkyrie went to the realm of the Faceless Ones to bring him home. She stayed by his side when she knew what he was. She knew all the dark and bloody things about him and she stayed. We would kill the whole world for him. What made you think it was anything else?” she turned away from Ghastly and went to Vile's side again. Only he wasn't Vile anymore. Sometime in his sleep he'd changed back to Skulduggery, but the armor hadn't let go. His glittering soul looked tainted and gray to her eyes, and she didn't think he'd ever come out of the armor again. 

She smiled, and turned her head to look at Ghastly. “You can go back now. I won't stop you. You can tell everyone who's left that Valkyrie Cain and Skulduggery Pleasant are traitors and monsters and whatever else. And you can tell them that it's all your fault. From the beginning, it was yours.”

Ghastly, his face bloodless and his eyes wide, backed up a step or two, then turned and ran. 

Darquesse sat silently next to Skulduggery, whose head boiled with dreams of blood and death and vile thoughts, and waited for him to wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> "'How will this end?'  
> 'In fire.'"  
> -Babylon 5, the Coming of Shadows


End file.
